Wall Street steady amid flutters felt over Syria conflict
U.S. stocks traded around the break-even point Friday as Wall Street reacted to geopolitical worries in the Middle East and a cooling U.S. jobs market.
The major U.S. stock indexes demonstrated resilience and stability despite jitters related to the U.S. military firing missiles at a Syrian air base overnight and a report that showed U.S. job gains in March came in weaker than analysts expected.
In futures trading overnight, the Dow Jones industrial average initially tumbled more than 100 points when news of the U.S. military strike hit, but the losses subsided. The Dow was then weighed down by the weak jobs report, which showed 98,000 jobs created last month, roughly half of what Wall Street had forecast.
Stocks moved in and out of positive territory to start the day. As of 12:45 p.m. ET on the final trading session of the week, the Dow was up 5 points, or 0.03% higher. The broad Standard & Poor’s 500 was fractionally higher. The Nasdaq composite was up 0.1%. The small-cap Russell 2000 stock index was unchanged.
The weak jobs report, which was partly blamed on nasty winter weather that hurt hiring in construction and retail, reinforced fears the economy is slowing.
Paul Ashworh, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, downplayed fears that the disappointing March jobs report signaled that the U.S. economy is “poised for collapse.”
He said, “The truth is this is mostly just weather-related noise.”
News of U.S. military involvement in Syria gave investors a new risk to consider.
“The U.S. airstrikes on Syria serve as a dramatic reminder that many of the simmering crises around the world can flare up with a virtual moment’s notice, with potentially dramatic impacts on financial markets and the economy,” said Mark Hamrick, Bankrate.com’s senior economic analyst. “For the moment, investors are betting that this story is relatively short-lived.”